Class _E~4_5_/ 

Book ^OLl 



SLAVERY, AND THE DEATH OF JOHN BROWN. 



A 



BERMON 



PREACHED IN AUBURN HALL, AUBURN, 



SABBATH AFTERNOON, Dec. 11th, 1859. 



BY 

REV. SAMUEL N. TUFTS, 

PASTOR OF THE AUBURN FREE BAPTIST CHURCH. 



LEWISTON : 
PRINTED AT THE JOURNAL OFFICE. 

1859. 



B4M 

Til 



Auburn, December 12, 1859. 
Dear Sir:— The undersigned, in behalf of your Church and Society, and numerous other 
persons of this village, ask for publication a copy of your Sermon on " Slavery, and the Death of 
John Brown," preached yesterday (Sabbath) afternoon, at the Free Baptist place of worship, in 
Auburn Hall. Respectfully yours, 



Rev. Samuel N. Tufts, Pastor. 



PAUL CURTIS, 
J. LITTLEFIELD, 
JOSEPH W. PERKINS. 



Parish Committee. 



Auburn, December 15, 1859. 
Gentlemen : — In consideration of yours of the 12th, a copy of said sermon is at your dispo- 
sal. SAMUEL N. TUFTS. 
Messrs. P. Curtis, J. Littlefield, J. W Perkins, Committee. 



SERMON. 



Jeremiah, ix.: 9. — Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 

This startling inquiry was raised concerning a people privileged beyond 
an ordinary degree in that age of the world. 

But they had become indifferent to their privileges and reckless of the 
consequences of their abuse ; — made when they were at ease and crying 
peace, peace, when God had not spoken it, and when they neither expected 
nor were prepared for such an intimation. 

Had seven thunders uttered their voices, or earth quaked from pole to 
pole, or stars been riven into fragments, their astonishment could have been 
no greater. 

A nation's doom written upon the wall palsies nerve and muscle, makes 
regal knees tremble, and courtiers ghastly ; but to hear it in the audible 
tones of the Almighty is terrible. The text, from the circumstances of its 
utterance and the gravity of its language, though interrogative in form, is 
to be regarded as declaration of fact, — the expression of a fixed determin- 
ation ; — as if God had said he would be avenged on such a nation. 

To avenge is to contend with and win from, — to obtain recompense for 
injuries received by the administration of equitable penalties. Thus the 
guilty were punished, honor vindicated, and justice satisfied. 

When God threatens there are no inferences of inability to perform on 
the one hand, nor power of resistance on the other. 

Nor are Divine threatenings made without jusjgjause ; and in this in- 
stance, not till moral and religious defection had , %ecome fearfully devel- 
oped. Remonstrances and all possible appliances having failed, God an- 
nounced his purpose to abreviate their wickedness in judgments. Oppor- 
tunities of reconciliation and restitution had passed, and but one alterna- 
tive remained. 

To fall into the hands of an offended God proved no trifling affair. The 
text was originally addressed to the Jews, and tempered to their circum- 
stances. By a Divine arrangement, the same or similar instrumentalities 
as then employed, were to be repeated as means of reclaiming the wicked 



4 



in the future. By the transfer of the Bible to our hands God warns and 
threatens us as thein. 

Whatever was applicable to them is applicable to us under the same or 
similar circumstances. The greater the light and means of improvement, 
the greater the responsibility, and more aggravating the sin when committed. 

If the lesser sin provokes the vengeance of God, how fearful the pros- 
pect of those who commit the greater. When God threatened to be 
avenged on the Jews, he meant what he said. When he speaks to others 
through similar channels, and repeats the same threatenings, he means as 
much and will execute as severely. 

His judgments do not clamor for execution with such indecent haste as 
some modern enactments, but they come none the less surely. If the Jews 
were not spared the execution of threatened judgments, how shall nations 
furnished to infinity with the means of usefulness and improvement — 
social, religious, educational, and otherwise — yet guilty of the same sin, 
escape ? When the lesser sin and nation are punished, how overwhelm- 
ingly fearful the punishment and ruin of the greater ? 

It is through the Bible that God talks with us on moral and religious 
subjects, and therein he has told us as the Jews, that we are a marked peo- 
ple, — that his eye is open to scrutinize human conduct, and will whet his 
sword of justice and make inquisition for blood. 

A sin of Jewish name is neither more dangerous nor aggravating than 
the same sin of another name and by another nation, under similar cir- 
cumstances ; so that the announcement of the text to others is by no means 
insignificant. God is neither less respecter of nations than of persons in 
matters of equitable responsibility, nor will he be in administering justice. 

Then may he well ask, and so ask as to declare, that he will be avenged 
on such a nation as this, — a nation guilty of greater inhumanity and infi- 
delity than the Jews were capable of under the old dispensation. Here, 
then, is the application of the text to some practical purpose, — to this 
nation, as though God had said, " I will be avenged on the American peo- 
ple," — this nation. 

To illustrate and apply the subject is our present business. 

As already said, this text was addressed originally to the Jewish na- 
tions. Now let us consider briefly the offences which provoked its an- 
nouncement. Infidelity, adultery and oppression were strangely and yet 
naturally commingled and smelted together to a fearful extent. These 
three constituted a trinity and unity inseparably connected and was the 
great prevailing and provoking sin, individual and national. Against 
these they had been warned by prophets and various Divine manifestations, 
but to little effect. Established as a model nation in the best land known 
to man,— favored with the prestige of the greatest and best of living men, and 
furnished with ample means of development, they were on the highway to 



5 



the grandest achievements and the consummation of a glorious mission. 
For this they had been educated and privileged with divinely appointed 
institutions. They were to be an example and terror to evil doers. They 
were cautioned against practicing the evils of which they had complained 
and often reminded of their condition when in Egypt, and urged to pity 
the poor stranger, and not oppress him. 

Prophets were commanded to set their faces against Pharoah, and to 
prophesy against him and all Egypt. It was announced to the world that 
God had determined to break the arm of the oppressor, and that his face 
was set against national as well as individual sins, for evil and not for 
good. These announcements were pregnant with import, and the people 
advised to be admonished thereby. 

God commissioned his prophets to pronounce against all the abomina- 
tions of the people, — to judge Aholah and Aholabah, the sisters of lust 
and oppression, working wickedness in the land under the mask of religious 
and political science. Elders and strong men were cautioned against being 
bribed by their money and entrapped by their snares, — for blood was in 
their hands, and adultery in their hearts, though piety and science might be 
in their mouths. 

Thus the nation was forewarned and put on its guard, and past exam- 
ples often cited to make the warning more effectual. Pharoah and Egypt 
were held up as names of terror, — the first as the representative of kingly 
authority, power and oppression ; the latter, as the scene of tears, cruelty, 
hardship and bondage ; hence the significancy of the judgments, threat- 
ened to them, and warnings to the Jews against oppression. 

Words of woe, woe, were put into the mouths of prophets, and the}' 
were sent out crying woe to the bloody city, — woe to the bloody city whose 
scum is in the pot ; — heralding to the world that nations guilty of treach- 
ery and deceit, outrage and oppression, should come to nought, — that great 
strength and ample resources were no guarantee of success or stability, for 
of that they would be stripped, and the weaker, despoiled of their rights 
when in their weakness, would rise up in forthcoming strength and become 
their most cruel masters, and as they had measured to them, they might 
expect measurement in return, God informed them repeatedly that he 
possessed ample resources to avenge himself on nations that practiced op- 
pression and infidelity. # 

As for the oppressors in the South country, they might expect a politi- 
cal whirlwind from the North that would sweep the land and alarm the 
people. From that quarter, there would be a power displayed that would 
revolutionize their social fabric, and make the guilty tremble. Juclah, the 
representative of moral, religious and political power, hitherto regarded 
weak and despised by politicians and solid men, little even in her own 
eyes, would become a power and prove a terror to Egypt. Hitherto the 



6 



butt of ridicule, a target for politicians and scramblers for distinction, her 
name alone would strike them with consternation ; and when evil tidings 
came their hearts would faint with fear. The great mass would be filled 
with trouble, disgust and sorrow, — be agitated with fearful expecta- 
tions, and become tumultuous as the sea disturbed and foaming by counter 
winds. 

The conflict between right and wrong — truth and error — liberty and 
slavery, would be severe. 

Such would become the condition of the Jews if they persisted in their 
infidelity, oppressions, the enslavement of the poor, ignorant and weak. 
They might boast of strength and courage, think themselves heroic and 
patriotic, yet, like native born Egyptians, they would fear and tremble, and 
failing to exhibit manfulness and bravery, they would prove the greatest 
cowards. The rustling leaf would startle a guilty conscience, and the 
wicked would flee when no man pursued ; constantly fearful, ever conscious 
of crimes and their demerit, their ears would catch at every sound and the 
mote would become a mountain. 

Such a state of society, hatred, revenge, oppression and fearful expect- 
ations, becomes like the great seething pot which the prophet saw rise upon 
the surface, — a great caldron, boiling and foaming with its face of steam- 
ing fury toward the north whecne they expected the power to crush them. 
From this overflowing and Southern boiler, violence had gone forth as a rod 
of wickedness to ruin and desolation. 

Hands wielding this rod embraced iniquity, committed evil and cruelty 
upon the poor and defenceless, and goaded those who befriended them. 
They were not satisfied with ordinary spoil. Unlike wild beasts of prey, 
they were insatiable in their thirst for blood of their own kind. Their 
own blood, as it coursed in the veins of their children and relatives, they 
made haste to shed, and thus glutted their appetite in the admixture, half 
Jew and half Samaritan. Thus violence was in their hand, robbery, adul- 
tery, infidelity and oppression in the land, — thus God was grieved through 
many generations, till his forbearance and long-suffering were powerless to 
stay his judgments. It was then that he announced that he would be 
avenged on such a nation, and pour out his fury till their cup was full. 

It is not a little remarkable that the Jewish nation resembled and was 
the type of many subsequent nations, but none had a prototype in that so 
perfect as our own. What was written of them is as prophecy concerning 
us, and that ripening into history. Human nature and human govern- 
ments, in all ages, have been composed of nearly the same materials. In- 
dividuals violating the laws of religion and their own physical constitution, 
mature and come to an early grave. Nations pursuing a similar course, 
running riot in sin of every name, mature, and burdened with crimes, 



7 



come to nought ; and no element so hastens the decay of nations as infidel- 
ity and oppression. 

The institution of Slavery embraces within its infernal folds nearly 
every crime and villainy namable by the alphabet of letters. When a na- 
tion deliberately establishes such a system, and in defiance of all the re- 
monstrances of humanity, philanthropy, and God's own voice, all united 
in opposition, the way of destruction is opened, and its fearful end be- 
comes fatally near. Then it is that God says he will be avenged, that he 
will contend with and win from them till they are utterly overthrown. 

Most assuredly was he avenged on the ancient Egyptians, as signalized 
at the Red Sea, and none the less on the Jews and all subsequent nations 
following their example. 

One nation has always been raised up to chastise or ruin another ever 
since mankind became distributed into clans. As one succeeds another, 
the same course has been pursued and the same fatality reached. The pro- 
cess of maturing has sometimes been slow, but always sure, — the founda- 
tions thereof become sand, the great fabric comes to nought, — the crash is 
heard far and wide, but is soon forgotten. 

Empires and Monarchies become a prey one to the other, — the Assyrian 
to Medo-Persian and that to Grecian. Greece, in its rapid strides of power 
and greatness, enlarged her borders, annexed foreign territory, subjugated 
nations, and multiplied her States to an unprecedented degree and brought 
into her lap the ease and luxury of other climes till she became a victim 
to her own policy and was plundered by Rome. Yet Rome, with an infin- 
itude of historic warning before her, pursued the same course, only on a 
broader and more gigantic scale — aspired to universal dominion, and taxed 
the energies of her people and her treasures, her legions and armies, to 
secure this one grand achievement. 

She covered the sea with her galley ships of war ; sent her cohorts, guards 
• and legions to intimidate the weaker, and secure alliance for the downfall 
of the greater. Sacking of cities, plundering the nations, and subjugating 
the people to slavery, were but different and progressive steps in her ma- 
turing process. 

It was in these aggressions that Carthage, the former proud mistress of 
the world, received her fatal blow ; her greatest and most heroic generals 
humbled and broken ; her cities sacked, and above all, her capital, superb, 
splendid and extensive, burned, reduced to ashes and smoking ruins after 
a seventeen days* conflagration, till the nation was destroyed, her power 
gone. The expansion of Carthage and the oppressions of which she was 
guilty, hastened her doom. 

Rome, inflated with success, pressed on her conquests till vast portions 
of Asia, Africa, Europe, and other vast regions of country, became parts 
and parcels of her empire. Ease and luxury, arts and wealth poured into 



8 



her lap from every quarter, and millions of foreigners were forced to do 
her homage. Upon the threshhold of empire, she met the difficulty of 
dissimilarity of people, life, interest, habit, and necessity of different laws 
and government, and the difficulty also of administering government to a 
people so diverse ; to nations conquered, annexed and incorporated into a 
Babel of languages — an empire of one hundred and twenty millions. 

Her allies became her foes, and subjugated nations began to contem- 
plate their condition. Her allies and provincials were twice as numerous 
as her Roman citizens, and her captive slaves equal to all her native born. 
Representatives from conquered provinces became agents and enemies 
against the grovernment, and insurrections and civil wars were of frequent 
occurrence, and were augmented by the corruptions of the court. 

Licentiousness of the people in general, and magistrates and officers in 
particular — the cankering sore of a vast slave population of many mil- 
lions, and the corruption and mountain weight of the militia — being one 
to a hundred — all conspired together for forthcoming ruin, and Rome 
sank to rise no more. 

Ancient Lydia, Tyre and other nations might be cited to the same pur- 
pose ; all of which pursued a similar course and were neither profited 
nor warned by the preceding. Faithless and cruel conduct, extension of 
territory, luxury, ease, abatement of courage and enterprise and inability 
to execute laws upon foreign territory, were instrumentalities commissioned 
of God to work out the ruin of wicked and oppressive nations. 

The Mamelukes in -Egypt were once taken from the shores of the Cas- 
pian Sea and sold into slavery ; but as the wheels of fortune revolved, 
their time arrived, and they arose in majesty, took possession of govern- 
ment and exchanged positions with their masters. Had I time, I would 
speak of St. Domingo and neighboring islands where this same principle 
has been applied. Insurrections and blood are no strange occurrences. 
These are but illustrations of God's power and purpose to be avenged on 
oppressive nations. For his soul hates oppression. " Shall not my soul 
be avenged on such a nation as this?" This is the great question for us 
to ponder. In its application we will consider, 

1st. Some things wherein our history resembles the Jewish. 

2d. Some of the elements which expose it to a similar result. And 

3d. Some of the indications of its approach. 

I. Our history resembles the Jewish in the fact that as a nation we 
sprang from a noble stock. No nation under heaven was ever so richly 
endowed with intellect and intelligence and the means of useful develop- 
ment^ social, civil and religious, nor none so indebted and responsible as 
this. The stock of the Puritans suffer nothing in comparison with any 
other nation. Our history resembles the Jewish in that our fathers suf- 
fered oppression from their rulers. You remember the hardships and cru- 



9 



elties of the Puritans, when England was but half Protestant and ancient 
laws still in force. You think of Egyptian bondage and deliverance. So 
think you of the deliverance of our fathers from king and pope. As the 
Jews were settled in Canaan under the auspices of heaven; so were the 
Pilgrims upon these American possessions. As the former endured hard- 
ships and sufferings as antecedents to settlement and possession, so did the 
Pilgrims of New England. Under God, both won the victory — overcame 
their enemies — grew up to great stature and power, with institutions and 
privileges nowhere else enjoyed. 

These are parallel lines, only the latter nation and institutions are al- 
most an infinite improvement upon the former. Both were entrusted with 
missions for God and humanity with which other nations never were. Reli- 
gion and human freedom were the results each were to develop and make 
practical. Both were established as model nations, and required to achieve 
what no other had or could. They were to demonstrate their principles 
and apply them to human society and government so as to secure their sta- 
bility. Of their achievements, their retrogrades and defections, I might 
speak, as intimations of our own, had I time, but Jewish infidelity and 
oppression have been so freely set forth, I need not pursue the parallel. 
Apostacy from first principles is characteristic of both and to which the 
former owes its early grave . As a partial consideration of the same thought , 
consider, 

II. Some of the elements by which we are exposed to a similar result. 

Apostacy, that ruinous and fatal word embraces all the elements of a 
nation's downfall. The most fatal of all are infidelity and oppression, and 
the former is always connected with the other. Infidelity always precedes 
oppression. Without that you need not look for slavery or its results. 
This with its mask of Christianity has done more to undermine our insti- 
tutions and render unstable our social fabric, than you are prepared to be- 
lieve. To speak of this was not my object, but its intimation is due as an 
indication of the encouragement afforded to the vilest system of villainies 
and most fatal and fearful element of a nation's destruction. Parties and 
factions, church members and caucus leaders have in effect conspired to- 
gether to extend and perpetuate slavery — have made jmramount inhuman 
enactments, ignored the Bible, and done their utmost to hasten the ruin 
and wreck of our country, whether so intended or not. Such is the effect, 
and to deny or attempt to wink it out of sight is utterly vain. These 
things have been written — are matters of history. 

These men have stacked up together Bibles, tracts, whips, chains, hand- 
cuffs and all the bloody insignia of cruelty, deaf to wailings and grief, and 
call themselves Christians. Families are rent and separated, tenderest ties 
of human hearts trifled with, the image of God placed upon the auction- 
block, females indecently exposed, and mothers and children sold from 



10 



eight to ten dollars per pound, and all their anguish and deathless souls 
thrown in as gratuity. Thus the Union has been preserved, cemented with 
blood and tears, and professedly good men furnished with a history from 
which they can derive little satisfaction. I find no pleasure in such a 
statement, but like the prophet, I have no license to keep back the truth, 
however severe and painful. I would to God that priestly robes had never 
been soiled — that the Christian had always kept the better of the priest — 
and that by no political intrigues the pulpit had ever been involved. But 
these things I mention as intimations of that apostacy of which I have 
spoken. Pertinent to this is the fact which has rendered the American 
Tract Society, and the Sabbath School Union, those great publishing estab- 
lishments, so notoriously defective and servile. But upon these I have no 
no time to enlarge. 

The great leading idea of the Pilgrims in coming to this country, was 
religious freedom, and the great motives and purposes of the Revolution, a 
free country, free thought, free speech, free press, free men, justice, equal 
rights, and liberty to all. Nothing is clearer than our apostacy from first 
principles. Once the nation was like steel against oppression. It spread 
out its banner, inscribed " Liberty and Religion — now, " Democracy and 
no Higher Law" The principles of the nation are not what they once 
were, nor are the relations between the States so friendly. Once the asy- 
lum of the oppressed, the home of free and brave men ; now, the scene of 
oppressions, cruelties and cowards. Thirty years of Legislation in one 
direction has made it the by-word of civilization. Thus it has come to 
pass that by fraud and violence its boundaries are almost antipodal, and 
its annexations, for one purpose remember, have become measureless, and 
fearfully great. 

At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, there were only a few 
thousand square miles of territory which the relics of colonial serfdom begged 
for burial, and the whole slave population about five hundred thousand. 
Now, there are about one million square miles blessed with its presence, 
and four millions of people of mixed blood crushed under the hoof of 
American Despotism, — the vilest, most cruel and merciless that sun or 
stars ever looked upon. The slave power is in possession of more than 
half of the original area of the old Thirteen States, and with the " Dred 
Scott Decision," giving it preemption rights, the whole country, from 
ocean to ocean, from lakes to gulf, is one vast slave plantation. Our siez- 
ures and annexations are sufficient for an empire, and in this manner 
eighteen times as much as the old Thirteen States have been obtained, and 
two hundred times as much as Massachusetts, and enough of this south of 
Missouri Compromise line to make thirty States as large as Massachusetts. 
Thus millions of dollars uncounted have been expended ; the weaker plun- 
dered and despoiled of their possessions to give expansion to slavery. Mex- 



11 



ico and Central America have barely escaped, and time only is requisite to 
consummate the present design. The valley of the Amazon, with its eighty 
thousand miles of navigable waters, the islands of the Carribbean and sev- 
eral in the Pacific are in the programme and their seizure regarded as a 
question of time. Half a continent, and washed by two opposite oceans, 
is insufficient for the designs of the slave power, and thus it is clamorous for 
these vast dominions. 

Instead of six practical slave states as at first, we have fifteen, and 
they constitute one rast amphitheater of lust and crime ; and this same sys- 
tem they would extend over all the acquired and prospective territories, to 
an almost limitless extent. Within these State limits the inhabitants 
thereof raise men, women and children for market as well as for burden. 
Virginia, that memorable State, once the home of Washington, Jefferson, 
Patrick Henry, and other worthies, men who declared slavery unnatural, 
a warfare, a crime so glaring that they would never own another slave, and 
that nation, to endure, must be established upon morality and religion, 
and that they trembled for their country when they remembered that God 
is just; yes, this same Virginia by name, the gold having become dim, 
annually raises a herd of human bodies and souls for sale, to the amount 
of some ten or fifteen millions of dollars. In 1829 the crop amounted to 
one and a half millions ; in 1836 it increased to twenty-four millions ; and 
the number sold from their birth-place and home, torn from families and 
and friends, was forty thousand. 

Seven years of severity in the rice swamps and on the sugar plantation 
in the extreme South sweeps off an entire generation, hence an open mar- 
ket and a repetition of lust and crime. I speak of Virginia because of her 
present conspicuousness ; but other States reap a similar harvest. Such 
are the conditions of the slave propaganda, clamorous at the Capitol, and 
mutinous through the South. 

This internal piracy is not only infernal, but if in the power of poli- 
ticians of peculiar stripe, it is to be perpetual and continental. Acquired 
territories are prospective States to be represented by Delegates, Represen- 
tatives, and Senators at the Capitol. Unused to our language, in alliance 
with foreign policy, unacquainted with our institutions, with no bond of 
interest to cement a union and oneness, no sympathy but plunder, three of 
those wild barbarians will be allowed an equal influence in the enactment 
and administration of laws as five of our educated, refined and experienced 
Statesmen from the Free States. Thus anarchy will follow as cited in the 
history of Rome. The slave power will secure a fatal preponderance, and 
free institutions, religious and educational facilities, and Liberty itself, 
will be in jeopardy. With annextion, a vast horde of human depravity 
and constituency has been secured, incapable of good citizenship. So it 
was with Rome. Subjugated nations e*re generally anything but educated 



12 



and self-controling, hence the necessity of expenditures by millions annually 
and the constant debauchery of a standing army. Old nations were ruled 
by the military despotism of the slave power, and Roman laws depended 
upon the militia for execution. The praetorian guard in one age and the 
standing army in another selected the Dictators and Emperors of Rome. 
So in this country, the slave power has taken possession of the polls, ex- 
cluded freemen and filled the ballot-box at pleasure. In some instances 
these official enactments have been entrusted to foreigners disgorged upon 
our shores from the prisons of the old world, their jackets scarcely dry 
from sea fog. At the point of their bayonets the Fugitive Slave bill is 
enforced, — under their clemency fugitives are returned in hollow, military 
square to the slave ship at the wharf for reshipment. By their pickets 
the barricoon court house is guarded, and at their beck, judges and coun- 
cellors allowed to crawl under chains thrown around it by the bloody hands 
of a military despotism. This is the power that has broken down the bar- 
riers to slavery, and opened to its curse an empire consecrated to freedom. 
Thus millions of acres uncounted have been prostituted and are becoming 
drenched in the tears and blood of slaves. Whole States and broader 
territories are being pressed with the burning foot of the bondman, and 
millions of slaves, half and quarter bloods, children of their own mas- 
ters, are driven through fire to torture. A million more there are of these 
unhappy creatures than all the inhabitants of the nation at the time of 
the Declaration of Independence. 

The inhabitants of the whole country, by special enactment, are trans- 
formed into fugitive slave hunters ; no class is exempt ; the minister, the edi- 
tor, and the whole people, are liable to be put on scent of fugitive manhood 
with colored and variegated complexion, and sent with yelping hounds, 
they know not whither. The family circle is stricken down, the Lord's 
table liable to invasion and its communicants put on the track, altars scat- 
tered, Sabbath schools dispersed, and prayer meetings broken up. 

Resistance brings down the military despotism of the President ; a nd 
fines, imprisonments and death follow in quick succession. The gift of a 
cup of water or morsel of bread to the fleeing, panting and famishing fugi- 
tive in the name of a disciple, is punished by a thousand dollar fine and 
six months imprisonment. To be a Christian and patriot subjects one to 
the baptism of blood in this Christian land. We have the elements of 
decay gnawing at the vitals of the nation ^and the great ventricle may soon 
loose its life. 

Another dangerous element not often considered is the colored race 
upon this continent. Within a radius of & few hundred miles there are 
thirteen millions or more considering the great experiment of freedom. — 
Four millions and more are in the United States — more than four millions 
in Brazil, one and a half million t in Spanish Colonies, one million in Hayti, 



13 



three hundred thousand in French Colonies, two hundred and fifty in 
Danish Colonies, one million one hundred and thirty thousand in smaller 
provinces of South America, besides some forty-five thousand fugitives in 
Canada. These scattered people are not idle spectators to passing events, 
though mostly slaves. They are all of one kindred, all crushed and all 
bound together by one common sympathy. They are a nation of impla- 
cable enemies and have set their vigils for opportunities of revenge. Let 
those victims of despotism become aroused, combined in concert of purpose 
and action at a favorable time, and there succeeds a terror, a tornado of 
devastation little less than Tartar or Scandinavian. They lack not for 
leaders. There are men among them capable of the greatest achievements, 
results that might challenge a Hannibal or Napoleon to equal, names as 
terrible as Alaric or Attila, whose pikes would be merciless, and where 
whose war horse trod would grow neither grass nor wheat. Think not 
slightly of thirteen millions of pikes and daggers, — of fire and death in 
such hands, an army driven to desperation by misrule and oppression. — 
Think of a nation refined in arts and sciences, and boasting of literature 
and all possible facilities for improvement, exalted in all the achievements 
and possessions, social, political, religious and material known to man, 
ruined, fire, blood, terror and cruelty sweeping through the towns and cities 
of the nation, and you have some conception of natural results of elements 
now at work. Some historian may yet perform the office of a Gibbon and 
Avrite the " Decline and Fall " of this American Empire, and to annexation 
and slavery, he will attribute the fatal blow. 

Slavery is a warfare against humanity, a creature of force, brute or 
otherwise, and God has no attributes but what are enlisted on the side of 
the oppressed, and the result cannot be doubtful. Woe pronounced and 
executed upon one nation is transmitted to another of similar character 
with all the fearfulness of the first announcement and then repeated through 
subsequent ages without variation or abatement, and when the strong 
become weak and effeminate as they will through ease and luxury, as the 
result of slavery, and the weak become strong as they always have, the 
woe will be executed. 

This army of more than thirteen millions is increasing three hundred 
thousand and more annually, and its spirit of hatred and revenge propor- 
tionally. The more dollars coined from their blood and tears, the more 
jewels crystalized from their sorrows, the more fearful the settlement. 

Additional to this are the fearful importations of wild savages from the 
African coast and sold into slavery throughout the South. Two of those 
wretched creatures were lately on exhibition at an agricultural fair among 
other live stock and were offered for sale. But of this I have no time to 
speak ; but remember that the practical reopening of the African slave 
trade, under the implied sanction of the administration, is an element 



14 



pregnant with fearf illness to the nation. Other elements there are but 
too numerous to mention ; yet I would ask you to remember the repeal of 
the Missouri Compromise which broke down all existing barriers to Slavery, 
the reign of terror it occasioned in Kansas, the Dred Scott decision of the 
Supreme Court, the anarchy, tumult, hatred and tragic scenes arising 
therefrom, more fearful and numerous than my pen can write or name. — 
These are elements -now at work and by which we are exposed to ruin — 
these and others of kindred nature constitute this nation an empire of blood. 
Consider 

III. Some of the indications of its approach. 

Aside from these already intimated they are legion. The signs of the 
times are fearfully ominous. By external appearances we judge of the 
maturity of the fruit, and so it is in State and national matters. A fearful 
looking for judgments or some remarkable occurrence seems to be charac- 
teristic of the present. An unusual consciousness of danger and exposure 
seems to indicate the maturity of something dreadful. The judgments of 
some are manifested sometimes beforehand and are indirectly acknowledged 
just and due by fearing and expecting them. When entreaties and argu- 
ments are answered by clubs, pistols and dirks, it is not difficult to divine 
the issue. When nearly thirty millions of people are controlled by less 
than quarter of a million there is neither equality nor safety, for it is in 
the multitude of counselors that safety is found. Less than two hundred 
thousand slaveholders control the government and hold in their hands all 
the magazines of the nation, and Federal offices are at their disposal. — 
The great disproportion existing between the ruled and the rulers, may 
awaken in the minds of the majority a consciousness of latent strength and 
vitality and bring it into action. Hence the unavoidable conflict, hence 
the fearful looking for it by the rulers. Nothing but extraordinary meas- 
ures are deemed safe. Unprecedented measures are employed to extend and 
perpetuate a system which God and humanity abhor, — the precedents of 
more auspicious times are set aside, — the Constitution is prostituted to 
Slavery, — judges, officers of government, at home and abroad are both 
warped and bribed, — power increased irresponsibly in Federal hands, — the 
sacrifice of all other interests to Slavery and the desperate efforts on the 
part of its friends indicate an expectation forth coming of a crisis most 
disastrous. 

As a natural result and a significant indication, free speech is denied 
and no man can speak against the Southern spur and lash in the South 
only at his peril. The utterance of words or sentiments in any wise tend- 
ing to awaken in the minds of slaves any sense of manhood is an offence in 
Virginia, of fine and imprisonment from three to twenty-one years. Any 
man from the North without a passport is in danger. Northern book 
stores in the South and book agents, aside from those sent out by the 



15 



American Tract Society of New York, are tolerated only on conditions. — 
Murderous hands strike down freedom of speech in the halls of legislation, 
God's own book is forbidden to speak — conscience is made a crime and 
cotton is both substitute and king. Good men and women suffer penalties 
for acts of Christian charity and the practical belief that "inasmuch as 
ye do it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye do it unto me." 
Pulpits are muffled, the press fettered, types scattered when set for free- 
dom, editors and reporters hunted and treated as outlaws. Thus the 
nominally free are in danger of becoming slaves themselves. Whips are 
twisted and gags administered, and natural consequences maturing to be 
developed in conflict. Tyranny is and always has been timid, and only by 
stratagem and the snap of the whip has it been able to accomplish so much. 
It trembles at the utterance of manly sentiments; those of the Revolution- 
ary Fathers, have become treasonable and penal offences as prisons and 
martyrdoms testify. The mail bag is a terror, and letters and publications 
from the North have been intercepted and burnt in the streets of Southern 
cities. Barbarism has been and still is practiced upon Northern residents, 
and no man is safe whose heart is in sympathy with God and humanity. 

I could tell you of Thompson, Work and Burr sentenced to twelve years 
imprisonment in Missouri prison for sympathy with slaves — of Christian 
women and female teachers, whose offence was instructing slave children 
to read the Bible, visited with penalties and imprisonments in Virginia — 
of Drayton reduced to a skeleton in the nation's jail in the District of 
Columbia — of the martyr Lovejoy, whose press was destroyed and himself 
shot for his manhood — of a Torry incarcerated in the State prison of Mary- 
land for sympathy with slaves, and who pined to a skeleton within its 
damp cell and finally died a martyr in the cause of freedom ; and now as 
latest of all and none the less revengeful and ominous. Southern chivalry 
has just glutted its thirst for blood in the murder of John Brown. 

The great South, generous, noble hearted, heroic and patriotic as we 
are told, has now clapped the climax of all possible villainy in the sacrifice 
of that good, though mistaken and insane man. But patriots and friends 
of freedom will embalm his memory and water his grave with their tears. 

The fifteen slaveholding States are now like the great seething pot of 
prophecy, with its scum leaping into the fire. Its steaming face of fury 
is towards the North whence they look for vengeance. Consciousness of 
crimes makes them sensitive to the least display. The falling leaf attracts 
their attention, excites their fears and they conjure to themselves abandon- 
ment by their gods. Fearfulness leads them to the greatest indecencies, 
and none can be greater or more dishonorable to themselves and their his- 
tory than recent exposures. They know that their barbarities call for 
vengeance from some quarter, hence they attempt to guard against it from 
all. They know that a house divided against itself cannot stand, for 



16 



of that their fathers of noble memory told them, though they may never 
have read it themselves. Their prison house stands on uncertain founda- 
tions, earthquake elements are underneath and they feel the undulations, 
the pent up fires struggling to escape. Within their enclosure a nation is 
laboring for its birth, struggling for life and liberty, and those throbbings 
and throes for life cannot be suppressed. As well undertake to close the 
crater of Vesuvius as to attempt to lull to quiet these aspirations for free- 
dom. 

As by no means insignificant, I might cite you to servile insurrections 
and attempts in that direction, all over the South the last half century 
and their fearful increase the last decade. Combinations of this character 
past and present are but presages, and there exists a desperate determina- 
tion to achieve liberty in some way and time hurries to tell us how. 
Slaveholders feel the force of these indications and their hearts faint with 
fear. Hence their cowardice and frantic hallucination, such as "Romans" 
never knew, such as the age of the Revolution knew nothing of nor history 
recorded. 

Consciousness of guilt terrifies the heart, so that the burning of a hay 
stack appears like the conflagration of a city ; sparks from slave cabins 
like rockets sent up by an hostile enemy ; herd in the pasture as an army 
of invincibles encamped for the night ; and the flutter of birds sounds like 
the clash of arms — the rustling of tree tops as approaching and hostile 
recruits. 

Southern men have boasted of their bravery and heroism and by their 
boasting have generally secured a victory over the Northern, but John 
Brown has stripped off the mask and exposed their cowardice. He has 
revealed to the world what a past age would have been ashamed of. Not 
only exposed them, but has awakened the nation to its condition and the 
world to our shame. He has done what the South has always declared 
abolitionists dare not do — £ £ sacrifice any thing for principle ; ' ' but he has 
done it — put his life in jeopardy, weighed it against the liberty of the 
slaves. He has also proved to the South the insecurity of slave property. 
In this he succeeded. 

John Brown is a name for history — the cowardly conduct, murderous 
and revengeful, of Virginia, a scandal, a contempt, a hissing of civilization 
in all time future, forgetful of the great and good once her praise. 

The hero of Kansas and Harper's Ferry memory, was barn at Litch- 
field, Conn., in May, 1800, and was fiffcy-nine years and seven months of 
age when the nobility and humanity of chivalrous Virginia severed the 
brittle thread that bound the grey headed old man to this world. 

He was naturally of a religious turn of mind and from his youth re- 
vered the Bible as the word of God. He could perceive an emphasis in 
those passages expressive of sympathy with the bondman, and the duty of 



11 



letting the oppressed go free. His mind was early directed to the ministry 
and during his preparatory studies, his health failed and he was forced to re- 
linquish his purpose. He became an agriculturalist and a man of business. 
From early life he was always the steadfast friend of the slave and remem- 
bered him as bound with him. 

To contribute to the establishment of free institutions in Kansas, he 
became one of its earliest pioneers. He descended from the Puritan stock, 
his ancestor, Peter Brown, it is said, having crossed the ocean in the May 
Flower in the year 1620. His grandfather was a hero in the Revolutionary 
war — his father a soldier in the war of 1812, and then but twelve years > 
old, he sympathized with the soldiers engaged for their country. Hence 
it was a natural consequence that John Brown should throw himself into 
the breach and imperil life in behalf of the right . He consecrated himself 
to the cause of liberty — took with him two of his sons and they were 
baptized into the same spirit and devoted themselves to the same work. 
They were honest farmers and would have made homes in Kansas if they 
could. But y on remember the inauguration of ruffian brutality by the 
military despotism of the slave power, in the hands of the President and 
Cabinet, and the craven creatures commissioned with the government of the 
territory. Backed by the Federal government, hordes of villains, indescri- 
bable and fiendish, with appearances more repulsive than Gibeonistish 
poverty, and hearts and purposes more savage than Vandal or Gothic 
hordes ever were — slaveholding assassins in troops and armies of terror and 
ruin followed hard upon the heels of honest farmer pioneers and struck 
their deadly blows against human freedom. New made towns were burnt — 
crops destroyed — supplies intercepted and confiscated — homes desolated and 
left in smoking ruins. Families were dispersed — fathers murdered — 
mothers inhumanly and namelessly abused and murdered — maidens inde- 
cently exposed and carried into captivity — jails and prisons of Missouri 
filled with all ranks, sexes and ages till orphanage and widowhood and 
worse, settled clown upon the embryo state. Appeals to Congress and 
President availed nothing for their relief, for on the side of the oppressor 
there was power, but the poor had none to help. In those troubles John 
Brown had his share to overflowing. — Himself hunted, one son shot by his 
side, the other hewed to pieces with a slaveholders hatchet, other friends 
murdered and his property destroyed. Thus he was driven to desperation, 
and belonging to a family predisposed to insanity, he more easily lost the 
balance of his mind and was seized with monomania and hallucination of 
strange admixture. In this event he imagined himself commissioned of 
God to wield the sword of Jephthah and Gideon and to go forth for the 
deliverance of his captive brethren. 

His life had been devoted to religion and humanity, and ever bore an 
• unexceptionable character ; and Gov. Wise is free to admit that he was 



18 



the most upright and conscientious man he ever saw. But they had a law 
and by that law they said he ought to die, and so they hung him. His 
sympathies had been so strongly enlisted for the oppressed, that his judg- 
ment had been warped for some years, but regarded sane till the brutality 
of the slave power impaired his reason and brought on that bewilderment 
of mind which has so fearfully stirred up the soothing pot of slavedom. 

With hallucination in his mind he made a rendezvous in the heart of 
slave territory and prepared for the execution of his supposed mission. — 
He planned no servile insurrection nor unprovoked bloody deeds. His 
enemies do him the justice of exoneration from this charge, and I am not 
disposed to question their decision. He gathered about him some twenty 
men and furnished them with arms for defence in case of an attack. He 
supposed that the slaves at large were nearly rife for an exodus, and that 
they would readily congregate about his standard. He expected to be to 
them a Moses and lead them from bondage to freedom. But in this he 
was mistaken, and was exposed. He made a partial failure, but he startled 
the whole South and held Virginia two clays in dreadful suspense. No 
twenty men had ever done the like. A frantic Governor and ghastly State 
officials were put to their wits to devise a plan by which Harper's Ferry 
could be rescued from his possession and Virginia saved from being con- 
quered by twenty men from the North. State and Federal forces were 
summoned to the scene of danger and railroads put under embargo to meet 
the exigencies of the case. After forty-eight hours of fearful duress — after 
the news of the capture of Harper's Ferry, and the probable devastation 
of Virginia had reached every intelligent home throughout the North and 
West, Gov. Wise and the Federal forces compelled the old hero to surren- 
der. Bravery was never more brave than in the defence at Harper's Ferry. 
But twenty men were unequal to the combined forces of State and nation, 
and it is no marvel that he became a prisoner. Had he met no foe but 
Gov. Wise, no opposition but State soldiers, who could divine the issue? 
But they made him a prisoner, and without precedence, with indecent 
haste, he was hurried through a mock trial, his wounds still bloody and 
freely flowing, without time or opportunity to secure counsel, condemned 
and sentenced to be hung by the neck within about six weeks from the 
offence. 

The great heroic South became excited, fearful of every stranger, and 
as in revolutionary and Jacobin France they seized upon many on suspi- 
cion, and pedlars, beggars, lawyers, gentlemen, reporters and editors were 
on arrest or in jeopardy the next four weeks. Public highways were 
hedged up — business suspended, and all attention turned to the capture of 
Harper's Ferry and the heroism of Brown. State borders were guarded 
and soldiers crowded into villages and cities till hunger and starvation 
became a probable question. Evil tidings from the North, as in the 
prophet's day, made the wicked tremble till phantoms ghastly troubled 
the whole State. 

But December 2nd, 1859, settled the question beyond dispute. And 
besides that it became a calendar day, ever memorable as a day of revenge 
and blood— as a day of cowardice, massacre and martyrdom, to be cele- 
brated as anniversary day by the good and humane, in prayers, devotions 



19 



and suitable observances as long as the alphabet can spell John Brown and 
liberty for the bondman. 

John Brown is dead. He has left a widow and a broken family to 
mourn his fatality, but they mourn not alone. Thouands wear crape in 
their hearts and" sack-cloth on their heads for him to-day. He died a 
martyr — a hero, moral, religious and liberty loving, and his memory is 
henceforth immmortal. The great event has already been signalized by 
public demonstrations throughout the North and West and thousands of 
villa o-es and cities have been festooned with sorrow and forebodings. The 
great heart of the people is moved and it trembles when it remembers that 
God is just. 

To meet martyrdom face to face in our own country and in our own 
generation, is otherwise and more fearful than the consideration of ancient 
records. It stirs up the blood of Puritans too long sluggish, and sends it 
with former vigor through every avenue of soul and body. 

The day previous to execution Brown was allowed a four-hours' inter- 
view with his wife under surveilance. Through flanks of bristling bay- 
onets she pressed her way to the dungeon to meet him whom she had seen 
but few times for two years, and not at all for about six months. They 
met, not in the parlor of the prison as reported, but in the same dark room 
he had occupied from the first, his feet still in the stocks, galling 
chains around his ancles. Of that scene — the recognitions, expressions of 
love and sympathy, sorrowful pleasure, love and fear, my pen fails to write. 
During that sad and brief interview, the hour of supper arrived and the 
prison allowance was carried in, and husband and wife sat down to eat 
together for the last time. Little was eaten for it was a sad and ever 
memorable supper. As she became depressed with grief, the husband, of 
whom she says she is proud, attempted to encourage and cheer her spirits 
that she might bear the blow next day to be struck and of which he was 
fearless — telling her that hours but few would pass ere his spirit would be 
released and become her attendant. 

He regarded his life a sacrifice none too valuable for the cause and felt 
persuaded that his death would accomplish more for freedom than his life, 
and of his own personal welfare was well assured. The interview being 
abruptly terminated and the two forced to part, hands were again pressed, 
mutual blessings implored, children remembered and the scene was closed. 

The day following presented another scene over which angels might 
have wept and God become indignant. The farewell of fellow prisoners 
was taken — friendly hands of misfortune pressed and massive hinges grated 
as Brown was shut out from their sight. 

Calm, resolute and trusting in his God he stepped into a yellow wagon 
used for truckage, drawn by two white horses — rode upon his own coffin 
box, guarded by flanks of riflemen on either side till the fatal spot was 
reached . 

With step firm, nerve unmoved, arms lashed behind him, he ascended 
the scaffold of yellow pine eight feet high and sixteen by ten broad, with 
the proud flag of Virginia waving by its side, and that of the United 
States near by. There in the center of a hollow square of one mile in di- 
ameter, indecently and uncomfortably clad, surrounded by thousands* 
many and malicious, hundreds of whom would have gnashed on him with 
their teeth if they could, he stood the greatest and bravest specimen oT 
true manhood and moral courage of ail modern times. Five thousand 
brave soldiers, from silken locks to seventy years of age, guarded this noble 
man that no angel power should come to his rescue. 



20 yyj 

Religious rites were declined on the ground that the prayers of ^lave- 
holding clergymen could avail little, and with the refusal expressed his 
confidence in the prayers of the slave mother, their prevalence with God 
above all the religious eloquence of the State. The rough cap of fiendis 
make was drawn over his eyes, and the rope of slave labor adjusted aroun 
his neck. Being requested to step forward over the threshhold of death 
upon the trap, he replied, "You must lead me, I cannot see." Poor 
man ! Being asked if he was tired, after standing so long a public spec 
tacle and to gratify a vitiated desire, he replied, " No, not tired, but don ; 
keep me waiting longer than is necessary." 

At fifteen minutes past eleven o'clock the fatal blow was struck, th 
trap fell, — a twitch of the hands and muscles of five minutes, and the 
beating of the pulse for thirty-five minutes, and all was over. In the 
meantime twenty-eight physicians examined his pulse and passed judgment 
upon him. It reminded me of another scene some eighteen hundred year 
ago. In either case they brake no bones. His body was begged, as one; 
of old, and boxed for re-shipment to the North. The fatal rope was cut 
into fragments and the gallows into chips, as mementeos which brave Yir 
ginians wished to preserve. 

Thus John Brown passed from mortal sight, to be seen no more till 
God calls him and his murderers to judgment. Of that meeting — that 
awful scene — my pen is unable to write ; only, that State dignitaries 
judges and jurors, will then be on trial, "with the evidence of worlds against 
them, and an indescribable and wretched doom before them. 

God once told the prophet to write the name of the day, even this 
same day, and now by his providence demands of me the same, — and it i 
Friday, the 2d of December, 1859. Thus another Friday is added to th 
calender of tragic scenes, and John Brown died on the same day his Lor 
was crucified. 

Thus we have followed the good man to his grave and he mingles no 
more in person with living men, but his spirit is not indifferent to transpir 
ing events ; nor are we, and God being our helper, let us resolve, that i 
need be, we'll go to martyrdom in defence of the right. Peradventure 
God may yet be merciful, then let the heart be filled with hope, and though 
the heavens gather blackness and our political sun seems to be going down 
in darkness and blood, let us- remember that the destinies of thirty millions 
or more hang upon the issue of this great question. Though vengeance 
mutters from above and from beneath and thousands chant requiems for 
the martyred dead, let us labor, pray and hope ever that the tramp of free- 
dom may yet be heard around the graves of Lovejoy, of Torry and of John' 
Brown, that the impending crisis may be averted — the nation saved— the 
conflict now waging for liberty become victorious till not a slave shall clan 
his chain in all the land. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2010 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 



